3 ms·
That is an avalanche of current and you've hit on the reason the whole EV thing isn't going to work out the way some boosters think. The amount of infrastructur
by jeffbee 3y ago
That is an avalanche of current and you've hit on the reason the whole EV thing isn't going to work out the way some boosters think. The amount of infrastructure necessary to charge these things is ridiculous. A step-down transformer that can accomplish this feat costs a quarter million dollars, net of the pad and the wires and installation. It might be more globally efficient to re-do the entire grid as HVDC, but that might cost a few dollars as well. Far, far better systemic solutions exist, such as walking and buses and electric rail for humans, and reserving ultra-high-power EVs for cases where the payload actually needed to be moved, such as deliveries.
- regularfry 3y agoThe thing is that if the market has already determined that Tesla's range and charge time is OK, then building a car with the same range with the shiny new tech just makes the whole vehicle lighter, by an unsubtle amount. It's hard to tell from the press release, but the implication is that they've doubled the energy density. Right now if you assume 500kg of battery and you replace that with 250kg of battery in otherwise the same 2000kg car (which is now 1750kg), that's a 12% weight saving. That's going to show up as a measurably longer range all on its own.